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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Making Childhood Dreams Come True

One of the great joys of being a parent is making your child's dreams come true!

When my son was a preschooler, one of his early passions was an intense desire to be a garbage man. Over and over he would set up film canisters in a row on the floor and move his toy garbage truck along his "street" stopping at each can and dumping its shredded paper contents into the truck.

Fourth Birthday Cake

Our public library had a video titled "Garbage Day". It was my son's favorite and we would check it out repeatedly. The highlight of his week was garbage pickup day. I would get up early in the morning with him and wait outside by the curb for the exciting arrival of his hero, the garbage man. It was a little embarassing to be seen out there by neighbors on their way to work in the morning, but I stood proudly by my little man. One especially kind garbage man allowed Charlie to help him lift the can into the back of the truck and gave my son a company hat for Christmas.

"Driving" a Garbage Truck

One day I chanced to meet the owner of the local waste disposal company and explained about my son's love for garbage trucks. "Could we come to his company for a tour?" I asked. It was arranged and my son had a great time.

Among my favorite memories are the theme birthday parties I planned for my son. We had a couple of sports parties and one year I did pirates and another year I did dinosaurs. But was I in for a shock the year I asked my son what he wanted his theme to be. He told me simply "green". What? Green was his favorite color and he insisted that was what he wanted. This dream of his challenged me but on his big day I came through with green themed games, decorations, and foods. All the children came to the party dressed in shades of green adding to the fun.

Why am I blogging about this you may be wondering. Well next week I have the opportunity to make one more dream of my son's come true. It means a lot to me because he'll be a teenager soon and who knows how many more chances I'll get to bring a smile to his face. Last year I was surprised to find out that my son wanted to go to Disney World in Florida. He had never mentioned it before and I wasn't sure this dream was doable because Orlando is an expensive place to visit.

Fortunately, my library is sending me to a conference there at the same time my son's school will be on holiday. Discussing it with my husband, we decided to go for it, despite the costs, and have the two of them accompany me to Florida. I will attend the conference and the two of them will explore Universal Studios. On our last day in Florida we will all go to Walt Disney World.

In the words of Jiminy Cricket, "When you wish upon a star...Your dreams come true!"

Yep, we want to go to Disney World one more time (we went when the kids were 7 and 5, seven years ago) before they stop acknowledging us as their parents. Right now it remains the number one place they want to go on vacation. We're a little low on money, but if we can scrounge it up....Orlando here we come....

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